One She Saw a Blind Man

by Betty Johnson

  “Mr. Jaimeson refunded this investment at the time of your divorce.” Pendragon consulted the papers on his desk.

  “After I threatened to blow the whistle on him.” Irene smiled in remembered satisfaction. “The elite people always kept an eye on us after the Jenkins accident.” She turned to Prosser. “I hated what happened to Liam Jenkins; he was an honest, decent acting fellow. It tickled me when that mousy little wife of his went to your people and got OSHA interested.”

  “That was when you started seeing that safety regulations have their place in business,” Prosser remarked. “Your husband wasn’t so impressed, as I remember it.”

  Irene seemed to stare at the wall for a moment. “Now that I think of it, it was after that court case came up that Mike started drinking so heavily. He’d always gone through a fair amount of booze, but that’s when things got really bad. I had to cold-cock him one night; he had even started trying to beat on me.”

  Irene affirmed that the quarrel over the fiberglass boat plant had produced the final rift in the marriage and allowed her to free herself. She had had no direct or indirect contact with Mike Jaimeson since 2005, aside from the monthly checks his bank sent her. “I’m making enough now with Sandoval and Morrow that I won’t miss the checks if they stop coming,” she added, “but I am going to have my own lawyer watching out for my interests throughout this litigation.”

  ***

  A couple of days later, Myra Shuvalov and Vince Prosser accompanied Miss Araminta to the hospital.

  “I’m here to explain the financial realities,” Prosser told the assembled company. “Also, I drove Liam and Ellen’s Dodge Dart down here to the Melrose station. Sergeant Pierce is going to run me back home when he’s finished his shift. – The car is free and clear for Ellen to use, and Big Jake threw in a tune-up and oil change as a sign of his good will.”

  He sat down in one of the straight chairs the hospital had brought in for the Jenkins’ frequent visitors. “Ellen, the money in your name at the savings and loan bank is yours, free and clear. All the government auditors have agreed with what the bank manager told you. I suggest you transfer it to a banking establishment here so you can use it easily. Ms. Shuvalov can advise you on how to do that.”

  Prosser took a deep breath. “Mike Jaimeson’s trust account for Emily Jenkins has been frozen, pending investigation, but you’ll need to inform Barney Probst when your new bank account is set up so he can send the next monthly payment by direct deposit. This money is more than enough to disqualify the family from most government programs, except the ones for Liam’s blindness. Ms. Shuvalov has been working her community networks for all of you, and I’ll let her tell you about that.”

  “I’ve managed to snag you a little two-bedroom apartment that’s convenient to the resources for the blind Liam will be using.” Myra Shuvalov had made herself comfortable in one of the portable chairs and now held out a brochure to Ellen. “This is a first floor unit with one and a half baths, and it’s zoned to a reputable Metro school for Emily. Stove, refrigerator, heating, and air conditioning are all provided, and the first month is on the church. The place is unfurnished, so Araminta and I are going to take Ellen out to look over the furniture the church has collected and then to a thrift store to meet your other current needs.”

  Ellen was looking over the brochure. “This place even has a parking space right in front of the apartment. We ought to be able to make out alright.”

  “And never forget I’m just a phone call away,” Miss Araminta reminded her. “With all the scheduling conflicts you’ll have, I figure you’ll need an extra vehicle available.”

  Prosser seized the conversation again. “That’s it for your coming attractions. The damn lawsuits are going to take longer. Your divorce, Ellen, is coming along well enough. Mike Jaimeson isn’t contesting anything, and you’ll probably get everything the rest of the vultures leave.”

  “I’m going to be consulting with Liam more about money now,” Ellen assured him. “Now that he’s gotten a braille calculator, he’s really a whiz with numbers. He always was in high school, too, you know. I thought it was kind of a waste when he took that job at the saw mill, but there weren’t that many jobs available in our area.”

  “As soon as he gets more training under his belt,” Prosser replied, “we’re probably ALL going to be consulting Liam, if he’s as good as you say. The domestic violence and driving under the influence charges, though, are almost insignificant beside the mess Pendragon’s firm is handling in the Jaimeson criminal case. Abuse by a trustee of funds in an F.D.I.C. bank is something that gets the feds really worked up, especially if the area senators and representatives start weighing in on the deal. Big Jake is having a field day working his contacts, and Barney Probst’s company is applying the pressure, too. Everybody in the legal business figures this is a perfect case to set a precedent that will slap dishonest trustees down. Stealing a blind man’s disability payments – especially when your company caused the disability – is a great emotional hook for a jury.”

  “That means the damn case is going to be appealed forever.” Liam remained pessimistic. All this good fortune couldn’t be raining down on him after all this time.

  “Only if some outside group decides to prop up Jaimeson,” Prosser told him. “That could happen, of course, but it’s kind of a long shot. Jaimeson’s going to go broke pretty soon.”

  “Those poor guys at the saw mill.” Naturally, Ellen thought of her former fellow-workers. She turned a distressed face to the lawyer.

  Prosser grinned at her. “Don’t worry, Ellen. Whatever happens to them is going to happen very, very slowly, and I imagine some other saw mill operator will scrape up some financing to buy a going plant.”

  ***

  Left alone that afternoon with Liam, Emily whispered, “I’m scared, Father. You and Mom act like you’re going to live here permanently.”

  “Well, we’d be pretty stupid not to live here, Emily honey,” Liam told her. “After all, Nashville’s the closest place we can get services for the blind. I’ve been doing without them, but, now that your mother says she needs me again, I’m going to need that kind of help. She can get courses here to improve her own skills, too, and you can get a good education as well. Is that what you’re afraid of, Emily? Going to a new school?” Liam’s concerned face turned toward this still unfamiliar daughter.

  “Father, I’ll never be good enough to make it in big city schools.” Emily began pouring out her worries. “I know they’ll put me back a grade, and then I’ll never be able to catch up again. Not to mention those stupid school uniforms they have. Of course, Jaimeson cut up everything I had anyway, so I’ll have to start with fresh clothes. And then all the kids I meet will know about this messy court case.”

  “Emily, honey, we’re trying to keep you out of our legal problems because you’re still a minor,” Liam soothed. “Mr. Prosser said earlier that the only thing they’re giving the news stations about your injuries is a sketch drawing of your legs showing where Mike beat you. Nobody wants to exploit a minor, believe me, and I’ll stand in the way of anybody who tries. As for the damned school uniforms everybody insists on nowadays, Ms. Shuvalov will know what color skirts and blouses you’ll need.” Liam bared his teeth in a fearsome hiss. “From what I hear on the radio nowadays, all everybody wants is for the schools to be harder and the kids to be tested more. They’ve already dropped all the electives, and would even have dropped football if the communities would stand for it. I swear I’d like to shake me a couple of radio commentators.”

  “I’m beginning to think I picked a lousy time to be born,” Emily complained, “even if I had been born into a normal family.” Suddenly, she stared, horrified to see tears run down Liam’s cheeks. “I didn’t mean it like that, honest,” she gabled.

  “I understand.” Liam swiped a hand casually over his face. “I held you when you were a baby, Emily, and I thought you were the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to me. Tha
t’s why I knew it would be best just to wander off rather than let you or your mother down. I’d lost my ability to support you. I’ll tell you what, though.” Now his lively mind reached out to meet his daughter. “I hope to get my hands on a voice-activated computer in a few weeks, with a braille keyboard and some instructions on how to use the stupid thing. How about if you and I went over your schoolwork together? I know I’ve just plain lost some of what I learned in high school.”

  Emily found herself thrilling to his vision; this was a father the way she had always imagined one could be. “That would be great if you could help with my homework. Mom told me you were real smart in high school.”

  “And I played the fool after I graduated,” Liam concluded angrily. “I couldn’t see any future there in Brandywine except to do manual labor, and your mom went and got herself a job and a savings account while I was still helping the neighbors with Pa for food and spending money. I even did bush hog work for Big Jake one summer. That’s when Mike Jaimeson figured I would do well working in his pa’s saw mill. I helped Mike change a tire on that damned sports car of his one afternoon.”

  “And then you proposed to Mom when you got the job and started handing your pay envelope right over to her because she had a desk job.”

  “That’s what the men in my family were trained to do,” Liam explained to her. “That’s just how things were done in the country. Most men didn’t hold jobs, except for doing a little farming. We helped our neighbors build barns and houses and such, and accepted whatever they wanted to pay us. Handling money was a woman’s job, just like raising the hens and making preserves.”

  Emily stared at her father unbelievingly. “The world’s changed a fair amount since then, Father.”

  “Yes, and we’ve got to change with it,” Liam assured her. “That’s one reason I want to stay here in Nashville, unless we get a chance to build our lives in some other place with services for somebody like me. All of us really need the opportunities you can find in a city.” He lowered his head in thought and put down a hand to pat Fido. “You know, a guy named Mack over in Melrose saw to it that Fido and I were bathed and barbered to go to the police station. Mack always let me do everything I could for myself, but that night he gave me the clean shave your mother admires so much. Anyway, Mack told me that somebody up there was giving me a second chance, and I believe it.”

  “Somebody’s giving Mom and me a second chance, too.” Emily felt tears spilling over her own eyes. “We were so scared that day we drove down here. Mike had never carried on that bad before, and we thought we were trapped. He’d always told us that if we tried to leave him the Rutherford County Police would just bring us back.”

  “That’s a bully for you.” Liam sounded disgusted. “Mike Jaimeson always was a bully, even as a kid, egging other kids on to misbehave and then tattling on them. He used to act like we ordinary kids were just trash – and, in a way, I guess I believed him.”

  Now Liam began thinking out loud. “Your Mom just said I was always a whiz with numbers. Back in high school, I remember I could make the numbers dance – sines and cosines, solid geometry – all those things seemed beautiful to me. But I couldn’t work out how math could be of any use in the real world. I ran up all the board and feet figures for Jaimeson, but that was the only part of my job where I really used my mind. I thought men were meant to use muscle instead.”

  “Just like women are supposed to be happy to earn seventy-eight cents on the dollar,” Emily told him. “Maybe, among the three of us, we can kill those misconceptions.”

  ***

  Myra Shuvalov and Miss Araminta were showing Ellen the apartment they meant her family to move into. Ellen turned all the appliance switches and tried all the doors and windows, noting the pre-installed beige curtains.

  “It’s not really much bigger than the cabin Liam inherited, but at least there are two small bedrooms.” Ellen started planning out just what and how much furniture they would need. “For the living room, I’ll need a sofa and a couple of chairs – a big, comfortable one for Liam – and maybe a standing lamp or two. I know he’s going to want some kind of computer set up in there.” Moving to the bedrooms, she remarked sadly, “I guess we’ll need twin beds in the master bedroom, given Liam’s disability.”

  “Having twin beds doesn’t mean you can’t have intimate relations,” Myra told her bracingly.

  “Oh, I know that,” Ellen replied. “We just had twin beds in the little apartment Liam and I shared. Mike Jaimeson and I had a double bed, but we never used it the way you mentioned. Mike was real polite about being intimate until right after we were married; then he let me know the whole thing was just a convenient business arrangement.” She sighed. “I guess he had really loved Irene.”

  “I doubt Mike Jaimeson ever loved anybody but himself,” Miss Araminta responded acerbically. “Nobody’s told me anything to indicate the man cares a fig for anybody else.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” Ellen drifted back into the reasonably spacious kitchen and started looking into the cupboards. “I suppose I’ll have to buy mismatched china and used cook vessels from the thrift stores; I wouldn’t take anything from the Jaimeson house even if it was offered to me. All the dishes Liam would remember I left in our little apartment when Mike and I got married. What Mike’s parents had left him was so much better.”

  “Well, let’s get over to the church regional headquarters and see what we’ve got in the furniture storage room,” Myra responded, putting an arm around Ellen. She was an old hand at preventing emotional outbursts in vulnerable clients.

  ***

  For several weeks after the Jenkins family moved into their new home, a small bus provided by services for the handicapped picked Liam up every morning, while Ellen drove to accounting classes at the local vocational/technical institute. Miss Araminta took young Emily to school and picked her up afterward; she seemed to understand the teenager’s shyness better than her parents did.

  Soon Liam was able to buy for himself all the equipment the relevant charities couldn’t afford to give him, along with a sturdy metal computer table on rollers that sat in front of his comfortable chair. Father and daughter worked every week night in the small living room, making sense of homework assignments. Indeed, Liam was providing what the school seemingly could not – a touch of common sense and lectures on how the subjects related to real life.

  In return, Emily helped her father (and Fido) learn how to use the public transportation system that ran in front of the apartment building. She was very proud to be able to help him with HIS homework for a change. Soon Liam was going to and from his training sessions by himself.

  Weekends were devoted to audiobooks. Since blind library patrons got a special audio player and a larger list of titles than normal people did, Miss Araminta often joined the family in listening to a favorite book on Saturday. She always brought her cotton yarn and crochet tools and generally presented Ellen with a brand new washcloth at the end of each story.

  “It’s a different experience,” Araminta told them, “hearing someone read the story instead of reading it yourself. You even get to hear British and Irish accents when the characters are supposed to have them.”

  “These books are a real blessing,” Liam responded, “but I don’t think I would have paid them as much as a never mind when I was a young man. Sometimes you don’t realize what you’ve missed until you get older. At least now I have Ellen and Emily to operate that blasted complex audio machine.”

  “Having a warm bed every night will lengthen Fido’s life, too.” Emily looked up from grooming the dog. Apparently she had accepted him as the family pet she had always wanted. “We took him to the vet last week, and he told us Fido would benefit from some tender, loving care.”

  “Give me Mack’s email address so I can put it in my contacts folder,” Liam requested suddenly. “I need to thank him for all those times he’s stood in line with Fido and me to get the annual immunization tags. You know, h
e always told me to send word to him if Fido got hurt or something.”

  Araminta slowly spelled the address out. “Mack’s a good man,” she concluded. “I’ll have to invite you all over to dinner to meet him sometime. I heard your divorce decree just went through, Ellen. When do you reckon you and Liam can get married?”

  “Was that divorce ever a relief!” Ellen sank back onto the sofa cushions. “Mike didn’t contest a thing, of course, and he certainly didn’t want custody of Emily. Financially, of course, everything is up in the air until they get the criminal case settled. But at least I have Liam again.” She smiled contentedly at the blind man. “Not to mention a happy life.”

  “I’m thinking of asking your pastor to come over to the social services building.” Liam had evidently been giving the matter some serious thought. “He comes over to shoot the breeze with us every week anyway, and most churches don’t want a service dog on their fancy carpets.”

  “Liam and I never really subscribed to any religion,” Ellen explained rather apologetically. “The country churches seem so harsh and narrow-minded. I’d almost rather Emily socialize with that nice bunch of Buddhists at that café where I bought my recipe book.” Ellen had been much taken with the fragrant vegetarian stews she had been experimenting with.

  “Religion takes some people that way,” Araminta ruminated. “And never more harshly than here in the South. Just know I’ll be happy to stand up with you wherever you wed; and, Liam, whatever heaven I inhabit will always have room for Fido.”

  Liam looked down as though he could almost see Fido sprawled out on the floor next to Emily’s legs. “It feels kind of stupid for a grown man to care about an animal,” he began roughly, “but I’ll have to admit I do. Nobody really knows animals until they get to be dependent on them.”